The British writer Kim Sherwood, the first woman to be commissioned to write a new trilogy about Agent 007, created by Ian Fleming, believes that "James Bond can evolve and adapt to changing times, even though he is an iconic and popular character who everyone knows."
The turn that the author has given to the saga consists of "socializing" the role of the series, now "more choral", with three "more inclusive and multicultural" heroes: Johanna Harwood, 003, of French-Algerian origin, Joseph Dryden, 004, of Jamaican origin, deaf in one ear and the first openly homos- agent, and Sid Bashir, 009, who belongs to an ethnic minority, while 007, who is missing, is only evoked by his bosses and section mates.
In an interview with EFE, Sherwood (Camden, United Kingdom, 1989) acknowledges that "Fleming's shadow is long because his character is deeply rooted in popular culture", and as a fan of the well-known spy series, his purpose was "honoring Fleming and seeing where his style and mine shared DNA and giving a fresher take."
Sherwood believes that "the context is the key because Fleming was speaking from the 1950s when the great danger for the West was communism", while she does so from contemporary times, "it is proven that Bond as a symbol of Great Britain it is capable of evolving; Pierce Brosnan's has nothing to do with Sean Connery's.
In "Double or Nothing," the first novel in Sherwood's trilogy, Bond is missing after being threatened by vengeful forces in a world torn between climate collapse and the geopolitical upheavals of the 21st century.
If Bond had been a field dominated by men and, in the movies, with large doses of S-, in this installment, in addition to a new agent, Sherwood gives a "promotion" to the eternal Miss Moneypenny, who "is now the head of the Double 0 section”.
She wanted "a heroic female character," because when she was little and playing, she "always wanted to be 007, she wanted to rescue, not be rescued," she says.
Apart from the instructions of the Fleming family, who wanted to incorporate a new cast of agents, the author was inspired by the British MI6's own advertisements, which "look for people with different backgrounds, who speak different languages and who do not necessarily have to be white nor educated at Eton.
The author acknowledges that when writing the saga "it is inevitable not to keep the films in mind, because Fleming himself was already very visual and influenced the film versions of his novels, and these in my style, with which the circle is closed."
The war in Ukraine, North Korea's missiles, and China's balloons mark a topical situation that, in her opinion, makes "the spy genre more attractive."
Sherwood thinks that the Bond novels should not be rewritten to adapt them to our times, because "if we rewrite history we run the risk of not learning from the past."
There is no shortage of an antagonistic villain, in this case, Sir Bertram Paradise, who claims he can reverse climate change through cloud seeding, "a character who emerged during confinement" when he began writing this first novel, who "could well be one of today's tech billionaires."
To the author, the climate crisis seems "a terrible reality, which makes many people suffer while a minority benefits from it."
The action takes place in multiple settings, from the Middle East to London, including the Spanish city of Barcelona.
The writer admits that the appearance of the Jason Bourne saga was "revolutionary" and had a decisive influence on the 007 series.
When she wrote "Double or Nothing" she couldn't help but put faces to her characters: "For the action scenes I thought of Daniel Craig, I was also inspired by Sean Connery's panther gaits and for seduction the reference was Brosnan."
Writing a trilogy will allow you to "explore long time arcs of the characters", but everything can change with the evolution of the world: "To Timothy Dalton's Bond of the 80s, in the midst of amid the AIDS crisis, in which there were no S- scenes, followed by Brosnan's in the 90s, which was the complete opposite ».
Sherwood does not give up his most personal books, and after his debut with "Testament", inspired by the life of his grandparents, one of them a Holocaust survivor, he has just published "A Wild and authentic relationship", a historical novel about a woman engaged in smuggling.
